Thomas & Sarah was mooted as an idea many years before it eventually hit the TV screen in January
1979, almost exactly three years after the last episode of Upstairs, Downstairs. Pauline Collins and John Alderton reprised
their roles from the original series as we followed their adventures after leaving Eaton Place in 1910. The fact stated in the
Upstairs, Downstairs episode A Family Gathering that the couple had got married is disregarded – they appear in
Thomas & Sarah as having "never got around to it".

There has been much written about the merits of this series, some of it true and some of it unfair. What seems
certain is that Thomas & Sarah is more enjoyable if you come to it with a completely open mind or, indeed, if you've
never even seen the original Upstairs, Downstairs. The people most disappointed with this spin-off are those expecting
UpDown all over again. Pains were taken to distance it very much from the original programme – it would have been easy to
have had Rose or Edward stop by for a cup of tea, but it seems the absence of this sort of nostalgia was deliberate.

Having said that, the hostility of
many Upstairs, Downstairs fans to this series is well founded. The main problem is that there are conflicting ideas of what
the direction of the series actually is or which genre it falls into. One set of episodes consists of the larger-than-life
adventure/heist type of tales (among them, The Silver Ghost, The Vanishing Lady, Made in Heaven, Alma
Mater, and Putting On The Ritz) and these sit uneasily beside the other group of plays which are more along the lines
of the down-to-earth "class-barrier, social differences" kind of idea of the original series (for example, There Is A Happy Land,
Return To Gethyn, and The New Rich). This interleaving of episodes in two genres that don't mix is the
main downfall of this series. However, at least the producers don't try to mix the two genres within the same episode, which
would have been a complete disaster. Of the two groups of episodes, it's the "class barriers" set that works the best by far.

The problem with the differing natures of the episodes tends to slosh over into the characterisations as well,
particularly Thomas. One the one hand we have a nice chap who prays for the well-being of his employer in Love Into Three Won't
Go, and who public-spiritedly unmasks a headmaster guilty of minor-league fiddling in Alma Mater. On the other hand
we have a nasty drunken brute who takes his belt to Sarah in There Is A Happy Land, and who indulges in his own fiddles and
deceptions at the drop of a hat!

The blame for the schizophrenic nature of the series must ultimately rest with the producer, Christopher Hodson,
who failed to stamp his own mark on the production, instead letting the main creative opponents (Alfred Shaughnessy and John Alderton)
fight things out behind the scenes to the detriment of the programme. These arguments even boiled over into the newspapers of the
day, which cannot have helped public expectations of the series when it finally aired.

All in all, "The Essential Thomas & Sarah" really boils down to just three episodes: There
Is A Happy Land, Return To Gethyn and The New Rich (with, perhaps, Birds Of A Feather chucked in for
continuity reasons). Whilst I'm quite sure any UpDown fan would enjoy these selected episodes, the only single play really
worthy of the original series is The New Rich, the highlight of which is a great performance from Nigel Hawthorne as upright
butler Wilson who would rather lose his job than work in Thomas and Sarah's household which continually fails to achieve his standards
of "correctness".

This series was never repeated on terrestrial British TV and, until relatively recently, was almost unheard
of, even in territories like America where the original Upstairs, Downstairs was a runaway success. After many such years
of neglect, the series now runs from time to time on UK TV, as well as being available on DVD in both the UK and USA.

Factfiles have been added for each episode. These detail character backgrounds, continuity points, and bloopers.
Click on the icon on the left of each episode's
entry.

Most plot synopses are taken directly from the original issues of the TV Times. Sometimes these
might contain spoilers.

In addition to the listed writer/s, it should be assumed that the script editor, Alfred Shaughnessy, also
had story input into each episode to a greater or lesser extent.

Recording locations and dates for Thomas & Sarah are, in general, not known.

Names in square brackets are uncredited on the episode's on-screen titles. Extras and walk-ons are credited
where the information is available, but these details should not be considered exhaustive. Spellings of names in these cases is
sometimes uncertain!

All timings are from the UK DVDs of the show as released by Network – these will vary slightly on other releases
of the show (e.g. US DVDs). Timings are given as mm'ss". All the Factfiile notes are drawn from what was actually shown on the
screen – additional or contradictory material from the novelisations (etc.) is not included. To print a Factfile, press CTRL-P.

Any comments/additions, please email me (address in pink on the front page). Thanks to all those who have
contributed goofs and observations to the Factfiles.

These episode-guide pages (specifically) may not print properly in Firefox (due to a bug going back almost a decade).
If this affects you, please try printing them in another browser (e.g. Internet Explorer).

A short story for TV Times magazine

In the TV Times issues dated December 23rd 1978-January 5th 1979 and January 6th-12th 1979, a
two-part short story entitled The Spin Of The Wheel was presented. This was written by Upstairs, Downstairs
script editor Alfred Shaughnessy and was designed to bridge the gap between the original show and Thomas & Sarah.
It concerned a motoring accident between the pair and a young scrap merchant called Tubwell, or Tubby for short, who featured
as a semi-regular in the new series. (The story can be found on my Odds and ends page.)

Major new drama series featuring two characters from the award-winning Upstairs, Downstairs.
Sarah was the pert little cockney parlourmaid in the Bellamy household, while Thomas was the devious chauffeur. By 1911
both had left the Bellamys to carve out a life for themselves. The couple have split and Sarah has moved to a village
in Surrey and it is there that a car suddenly alters the course of her life... Thomas has returned – but why?

Opportunists Thomas and Sarah visit Thomas's brother and the rest of his devoutly religious family in
a remote Welsh village. The visit enables Sarah to clear up a mystery. Did Thomas really rape Bessie Evans?

* The original script for this story was by Alfred Shaughnessy but was completely rewritten,
with a new plot, by Brady and Bingham when John Alderton refused to play it halfway through rehearsals – nevertheless
some LWT paperwork also bears the credit: "From an original story by Alfred Shaughnessy." This original version would
have seen Thomas and Sarah helping a young soldier (to have been played by David "son of Alfred" Shaughnessy) to persuade
his parents that the girl he wishes to marry (Suzanne Burden) is not socially beneath him.

+ Despite this credit, the character appears to be called Cordelia. See the Factfile.

The working title for this story was Puttin' On The Ritz.

The New Rich
12
UK: 1st April 1979

Studio: 8th & 9th March 1979 (12/13)

A daring gamble by Thomas results in a complete change of status for him and Sarah when the pair become
master and mistress to their own set of servants. The situation soon turns sour when their upright butler begins to experience
"problems" with his new employers.

* These two roles were credited in the TV Times, but do not seem to appear
in the finished episode. In any case, "Sawnay" is probably supposed to read "Dawnay" (and indeed does on some paperwork)
but some sources say "Stanway" instead.

Love Into Three Won't Go
13
UK: 8th April 1979

Studio: 23rd March 1979 (13/13)
Location: 26th-28th March 1979

The series ends with Thomas and Sarah forced to return to domestic service and find themselves engaged
by the reclusive and haunted Richard De Brassey, but their strange employer is not what he first appears and a strange
love blossoms...

Although not a critical success, Thomas & Sarah obtained respectable viewing figures amongst
the general public and a second season was planned, again of 13 episodes. Proposed titles included: Where There's A Will
and For Richer, For Poorer (written by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham), and Favours and Flying The
Foam (by Jeremy Paul). The remaining nine episodes were likewise split between Brady/Bingham and Paul.

The first batch of location OB work for the second season started on 9th July 1979 and went through till
18th July. This consisted of scenes shot in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire showing the aftermath of the fire that viewers had
witnessed in the last episode of the first season, Love Into Three Won't Go (and explained the cliffhanger that story
ended with!)

The next batch of location work was from 30th July to 2nd August and featured scenes shot in the seaside
resorts of Hastings and St Leonards. This material was intended for use spanning over several episodes – the story arc culminating
in Thomas taking part in a competition for man-powered flight at the end of Hastings pier. However a huge strike over pay hit
the ITV network on August 10th and technicians pulled the plug – viewers being left with nothing but a static computer-generated
caption on their screens for the next 10 weeks.

After the strike was called off on October 24th, with their programming in complete disarray, LWT took
the decision to pull the plug on Thomas & Sarah – this being the easiest option for a show which only had a few minutes
of material already "in the can". Further planned location work was scrapped, and all 13 studio recordings (which were originally
to have lasted through till 28th March 1980) were abandoned. The stars, guest stars and semi-regulars (who were to have included
Tony Haygarth, Harold Goodwin and Barbara Lott) were paid off and released from their contracts.

Being of little use to LWT, the location material already recorded was junked and no longer exists.